Norway launches national whole-of-society preparedness strategy
Norway's PM Jonas Gahr Støre and Minister of Justice and Emergency Preparedness (every country needs one!) Emilie Enger Mehl launched the Total Emergency Preparedness Report. The report sets out the course for strengthening civil resilience and Norway's total emergency preparedness.
"Together we become strong and more resilient. We must all think about preparedness, both at home, in our free time and at work. National authorities, municipalities, businesses and each of us must contribute to making Norway even better prepared for crisis and war, says the Prime Minister."
"To handle crises and the unforeseen, we must cooperate and come together. We have managed this before, when we were a poorer country than we are now. We will manage it again. But we must create a culture of preparedness in all parts of society, says Mehl."
Some of the main measures are that the government will:
-Present a long-term plan for civil preparedness, including the police, and start work in 2025
-Legislate emergency preparedness councils in all municipalities, regions and critical areas of society, where emergency preparedness actors, volunteers and the business community will together prevent, practice and manage crises
-Increase the number of people liable for service in the Civil Defence from 8,000 to 12,000 over eight years
-Request the Storting to repeal the decision to stop the construction of shelters from 1998, and impose an obligation to build shelters in new buildings
-Increase the subsidy to voluntary organisations in the rescue service by 100 million through an escalation plan over 8 years. This is in addition to 6 million in this year's budget
-Legislative authority to impose civilian work obligation in a security crisis or war
-Have a 50 percent self-sufficiency rate by 2030 and step up emergency storage of food grains for 3 months by 2029
-Start work on a new cyber preparedness scheme in public-private cooperation to handle serious cyber incidents
-Strengthen national control through a scheme with prior approval for the purchase of certain properties that may be particularly interesting to threat actors
-In cooperation with the Armed Forces, strengthen control at sea and in the maritime sector
-Create a new system for a register of ownership of properties in Norway, which complements the new register of who are the actual owners of companies
-Prepare a strategy to strengthen resilience against disinformation and strengthen the population's ability to criticize sources
-Contribute to NATO's work on civilian resilience and cooperate in the -Nordic countries and internationally on preparedness, for example on health
-Create a national security strategy
-Regularly establish a total preparedness commission
